28. Irene Kirkaldy, Civil Rights Pioneer
Before Rosa Parks or Claudette Colvin, a brave woman named Irene Kirkaldy was fighting for her rights. Kirkaldy was arrested for refusing to give up a bus seat to a white passenger in Virginia in 1944. NAACP lawyers, including future Supreme Court judge Thurgood Marshall, helped Kirkaldy fight her case. While the Supreme Court ruled in her favor in 1946, southern states basically ignored the ruling. Kirkaldy received a Presidential Citizens Medal for her role in civil rights from President Clinton in 2001.
